DEATH FLIGHTS – 28 May 2020

Another relatively slow day, 9 flights today – 2 Deportations Jamaica and Grenada, with 1 connection. 6 Shuffle flights in the US.

-As we watch for patterns, we note that Thursday is typically a slower day; only one regular route is flown. The route; Miami, FL (MIA) to Columbus, GA (CSG) to Alexandra, LA (AEX) to Brownsville, TX(BRO) to Miami, FL (MIA). This route is flown every Thursday, no variation and never skipped. Who are they moving and why? Avoiding a judges order in Miami? Spreading the coronavirus to Georgia, Louisiana and Texas?

DEATH FLIGHTS – 27 May 2020

A slower day, 10 flights today – 2 Deportations to Honduras, with 1 connection. 2 Deportation returns. 5 Shuffle flights in US.

-As we watch for patterns, we note that Wednesday is typically a slower day; only one regular route is flown. The route; Alexandria, LA (AEX) to Minneapolis, MN (MSP) to Omaha, NE (OMA) to Kansas City, MO (MCI) to Alexandria, LA (AEX), is very consistent.

-The number of coronavirus deaths in the US passed 100,000 today.

This social media space is not a place any of us come to enjoy ourselves. For many of us, it is a painful experience. Especially painful now, I think.

There is no good news. There is nothing to inspire anything but despair. And for those of us who are activists, who were able at one time to turn our feelings of outrage and sympathy into vigils and sign making and loud, righteous cries, we are constrained by conditions that threaten our own survival. Many of us are old enough to be seriously worried about contracting a disease that could shorten our longish lives.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 26 May 2020

24 flights today – 3 Deportations – Mexico (2) and Haiti 3 US Deportation Connections. 3 Deportation returns. 15 Shuffle flights in US.

Today was another busy day with deportations and shuffle flights around the country continuing to spread COVID without concern. There were at least 2 constants observed today.

-One is that there are 4 regular routes each Tuesday.

-Two is that COVID changes nothing for ICE. There are still 4 regular Tuesday routes, all just moving people from center to center.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 25 May 2020

HATE DOES NOT TAKE A HOLIDAY – While the people of the US were thinking about and honoring those who sacrificed their security and lives for our peace and freedom, this Memorial Day, ICE Air was busy taking away the freedom from people coming here for protection and to take part and earn a piece of the American dream. The same America dream that those we honor today fought and gave their lives for to protect for eternity.

TODAY:

16 flights – 3 Deportations – Honduras (2), Bogata). 4 US Deportation Connections. 3 Deportation returns. 6 Shuffle flights in US.

Memorial Day brings to us exhortations to exercise our memory, most commonly to remember those who died in wars, more eclectically to refresh our minds with moral hazards of the past in the hopes of avoiding those dangers ever present. There is scolding in the air. Never again is now. And more scolding that takes those scolds to task for finding equivalences among various sectarian tragedies and others. We weigh these sorrows on scales of proprietary outrage, chatter that brings to mind disputations about angels, or perhaps devils in this case, pirouetting on heads of pins.

We notice when things change. And last week as we watched the flights of ICE Air, we noticed something different happening. New flights, from near the border, to Mexico City.

What are these flights? They are expulsions of Mexican nationals. Not deportations. A deportation requires a procedure that involves ICE custody. But these folks are never in ICE custody. They are just like the immediate expulsions at the border that are being carried out under the orders of the Centers for Disease Control that pretend that we are being invaded by carriers of the Covid virus. I say pretend because our government has been wanting to do this all along: to hell with all the legal pretense, just go back where you came from.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 22 May 2020

PANDEMIC DEEPENS AROUND THE WORLD AND ICE AIR ACCELERATES EXPORTATION OF COVID THIS WEEK

TODAY

23 flights – 7 Deportations – Mexico (2), Honduras (2), Guatemala (2), El Salvador (1), Honduras (2). 6 US Deportation Connections. 6 Deportation returns. 4 Shuffle flights in US.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 21 May 2020

9 flights today – All shuffle flights within the US. It is striking to me that, with NO deportation flights today, there were still 9 flights shuffling deportees around.

Ø Today was a pause from the extremely busy week to date. Perhaps it was because today Swift Air used 3 of their deportation planes and crews for a different and private purpose today. They shuttled cruise ship crew from San Diego to Barbados to their homes. They had been stranded in their cruise ships. It was an odd flight pattern for ICE Air so we did some quick research to determine why 3 typically ICE Air planes would go to Barbados. We learn more every day.

WitnessAtTheBorder.org is our web page, where we document the work we have been able to do while we shelter in place during the pandemic of the the Coronavirus. And what we have focused on is learning about the deportation flights of ICE Air.

ICE Air contracts with Classic Charters, which in turn has a contract with Swift Air, now known as IAero. This company runs what we call death flights. Why do we call them that?

DEATH FLIGHTS – 20 May 2020

16 flights today – 3 Deportations - 2 Honduras, 1 Nicaragua. 2 Deportation connections. 3 deportation returns. AND 8 shuffle flights).

Ø Yesterday we reported on 2 deportation flights to Mexico City. The first we have seen. Deportation flights to Mexico stopped with the CDC Order March 21. And before, they went to Guadalajara under the Mexico Repatriation Agreement. Since that time, and even then, most deportations to Mexico were by land, not air. We suspected that they might be resuming deportation flights to the interior to relieve the pressure of expulsions on the border. It appears from answers by CBP to inquiries and Mexico AP story that this is true.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 19 May 2020

WOW – 29 flights today – Incredible risk of COVID seeding and spreading.

4 Deportations - 2 Mexico, 1 El Salvador and 1 Dominican. 3 Deportation connections. 4 deportation returns. AND 18 shuffle flights (including one probable mechanical issue).

DEATH FLIGHTS – 18 May 2020

ICE Air continued to seed and spread COVID outside and inside the US this week through

15 Flights today. 4 Sat and 1 Sun. Today 6 planes in the air

3 Deportations – 2 Honduras and 1 Guatemala. 3 Deportation connections. 3 Deportation Returns and 11 flights shuffling around the US.

Colorado Congressman Jason Crow, alarmed at the transfers he observed in and out of the ICE detention center in Aurora in the middle of the pandemic wrote, along with other Members of Congress, to ICE to request, among other things, that they halt transfers and that they parole and release all non- violent vulnerable detainees immediately and review all non-violent detainees for parole.

My subject is breathing. How to keep breathing, when the horror of what is happening leaves you in an exhale, and has you wondering if you can win the battle against despair that keeps you in the bottom of your breath, not knowing where the spirit will come from that will suck you back into the world, and suck the oxygen of the sad world back into your lungs.

Here, on this page, we do this: we watch what is happening at one of the margins of our world. A liminal region which, for me, etches in deep relief the worst of intentions of our social order, and its worst consequences. Looking at this is a choice I and others have made, and in our darkest moments, for me at least, it is a choice I regret, but that I cannot change.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 15 May 2020 (please share for transparency)

15 Flights today - 3 Deportations - Honduraa, El Salvador, Brazil and 6 shuffling around the US

ICE Air continued to seed and spread COVID outside and inside the US this week through

- 68 Total flights

- 11 Deportation flights

- 13 Direct deportation connections

- 10 Deportation return flights

- 34 Churn flights between detention centers in the US

Ø Today Guatemala pushed back again of a flight. Their foreign ministry said that there were 3 deportees on Wednesday’s flight that had COVID despite the US’s testing program of all deportees to Guatemala. The flight scheduled for today has been postponed and it has been reported that Guatemala is working with the CDC on what new measured need to be taken.

Ø As of today, 986 detainees have tested positive for COVID, up 21 from yesterday. 2,045 have now been tested, up from 250 yesterday. A staggering 48% of those tested have been positive.

-ICE reports that 44 of their detention center staff have tested positive, but to date they HAVE NOT reported their contractor workers. Today they told the House Oversight Committee that at least 82 CoreCivic and GEO Group staff have tested positive. 90 are in quarantine. Combined, that’s at least 124 staff with COVID. What we don’t know is how many have been tested.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 14 May 2020 (please share for transparency)

9 Flights today - No deportations today so all these were to move people around – in a pandemic.

Ø It was a relatively slow day for ICE Air, BUT NOT FOR HATE FROM ICE.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 13 May 2020

13 Flights today –3 deportation flights, 2 to Honduras and 1 to Guatemala – and 5 flights shuffling people around the country.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 12 May 2020

21 Flights today –1 deportation flight

TODAY WAS A DEADLY SHELL GAME DAY – 18 SHUFFLE FLIGHTS IN THE US

- Along with the 1 deportation there was 1 leg in the US that connected to the last deportation leg. And still, 18 flights in shuffling people around the US as the COVID shell game continues.

Ø This post is about the deportation flights but let us not forget about the 20,000 people that have been expelled since March 22 at the border with no chance to exert their legal right to seek asylum or protection as a result of the CDC Order. Expelled to Mexico and that includes unaccompanied minors. Inhumane. Children sent to a country that may not be theirs, alone.

I wish, sometimes, now especially, that I could offer some comfort. But since I have somehow gotten a job as a witness to the treatment of people who come to the borders of the country I live in, I cannot comfort anyone. Not myself or anyone else. Not today.